[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 105 (Wednesday, July 16, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H6998]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             INCREASED EFFICIENCY IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, tonight I want to add my voice to those of 
my fellow Representatives who are calling for increased efficiency in 
our Federal Government. Our group has taken the charge to protect 
precious taxpayer dollars by streamlining and improving our Federal 
Government. There are many important programs that are being hurt. 
There are expenditures which could have been handled with much greater 
care. With wise stewardship, we can ensure that public servants have 
more prudent oversight when allocating American taxpayer dollars for 
Federal programs.
  Mr. Speaker, in my previous life I was a simple country doctor. I 
want to share with my colleagues some astonishing examples of some of 
the extreme expenditures in the Medicare program.
  Over 90 percent of Medicare payments to community medical health 
centers in five States, $229 million, were ``unallowable or highly 
questionable.''
  Medicare paid roughly $20 million to dead beneficiaries between 1999 
and 2000. Some of these benefits were distributed despite the fact that 
the Departments's database had the dates of death already logged in.
  Mr. Speaker, since coming to Congress, I have been appointed a member 
of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. On that 
committee, I wanted to make certain that the United States Department 
of Transportation was ensuring the most efficient business practices 
within the agency. On March 19, 2003, I met with the Department of 
Transportation Inspector General, Kenneth Mead, to discuss the business 
practices of the agency and how the Congress can better facilitate the 
decrease of inappropriate expenditures in relation to transportation's 
spending. Inspector General Mead and I discussed the need for greater 
stewardship and oversight in all of the Department of Transportation's 
programs.
  The Department of Transportation has not changed the way the agency 
disburses transportation funding to State and local entities since 
President Eisenhower was in office. We talked some tonight about trying 
to achieve one penny in savings for every dollar that we spend. The 
Inspector General of the Department of Transportation pointed out that 
if 1 percent of the $500 billion spent over the last 10 years on 
transportation programs was set-asides, the Department of 
Transportation would have an extra $5 billion to spend. That $5 
billion, incidentally, would fund four of the current top 11 
transportation building programs going on in the country today. I 
believe this practice could better assist the Department of 
Transportation in spending the taxpayers' dollars more wisely.
  There are several successful transportation projects that can be used 
as examples for greater government efficiency. For example, Interstate 
Highway 15 in the State of Utah was rehabilitated ahead of schedule and 
under budget. Today, from my district, I met with representatives of 
the Dallas Area Rapid Transit and those officials reported to me that 
they are currently within their budget, and DART intends to return some 
transit funding to the Federal Government.
  And, of course, we all know there are examples that are not so good 
of transportation projects that are overbudget and behind schedule: the 
Springfield Interchange, not far from here in Virginia; and perhaps the 
poster child of government inefficiency, the Central Artery Project in 
Boston, Massachusetts, the Ted Williams Tunnel, we all know down in 
Texas as the Big Dig.

                              {time}  2145

  We need to address the misuse of Federal transportation expenditures 
as soon as possible.
  Members may also be interested to know the House Committee on 
Transportation and Infrastructure believes government efficiency is 
important because next week on July 22 the committee will hold a 
hearing on the elimination of waste, fraud, and abuse in mandatory 
transportation programs as required by the fiscal year 2004 budget 
resolution instructions. I look forward to participating in the 
hearing, as well as working with the Inspector General, Mr. Mead, to 
further address this issue within the U.S. Department of 
Transportation.
  We are dedicated to protecting taxpayers' hard-earned dollars from 
being spent on inappropriate expenditures. We need to work together to 
ensure that our Federal Government is more effective and more efficient 
for the American taxpayer.

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